DIY

KITCHEN

MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY

Spherify your food for a new culinary experience. By Michael Zbyszynski

There is a movement in the cooking world called Molecular Gastronomy. The term was coined by Nicholas Kurti and Hervé This, and it has become associated with chefs like Ferran Adrià at El Bulli in Spain, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in England, Wylie Dufresne at wd~ 50 in New York, and Homaru Cantu at Moto in Chicago.

Photography by Henry Zbyszynski

Essentially, it involves applying scientific techniques to the cooking process. One of the more interesting techniques is the use of common substances to control the texture of foods, often in surprising ways.

You don’t need a chemistry lab to pull off such effects. With a few inexpensive tools and chemicals, it’s possible to use spherification to make all kinds of “caviar” (and other shapes) in your own kitchen.

In this project, I’ll explain how to make a “ spherification array” that allows you to quickly create

many pieces of caviar. Next, I’ll show you how to use it to make juice caviar and a molecular mojito.

Making a Spherification Array

Squirting the first dozen spheres out of a syringe is pretty fun. But it’s somewhat time-consuming to make a large amount of caviar with this method and it’s impossible to leave all the spheres in the setting bath for the same amount of time if it takes most of a minute to squirt them all out. That was unacceptable to me, so I wanted a different solution.

I found a product called the EZ Pipette 96 that is essentially a 96-headed syringe, made just for this purpose. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend $50, though, and then I saw a video on You Tube that showed chefs in Tokyo making carrot caviar using an array of syringes in an acrylic stand. That seemed perfect, and easy to build.

Make: 149